


The Cure For Madness

by LycanDark



Series: Gavin and the Jester [3]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Choking, M/M, Madness, Possessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 16:40:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20361709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LycanDark/pseuds/LycanDark
Summary: Part of the Dark Brotherhood questline. Yup. Just a bit of a prequel.Stands alone just fine.





	The Cure For Madness

**Author's Note:**

> In real life, you should only choke people that have consented. But I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone that Gavin is not someone to be. Except as a dad. But that hasn't been written yet, so just don't be him. Or Cicero. Don't be a murder boy.

“The Night Mother doesn’t want this! Sithis doesn’t want this!”

The voice echoing through the abandoned and decrepit sanctuary grows more and more frantic as Gavin travels his way through with ease, almost leisurely slashing the ghostly children of Sithis back into the void with the most effort given to drawing his bow to shoot down one in the distance. Laughter bubbles up inside him as he thinks of what has led him here and what he has yet to do, and when it bursts through his lips, the voice tries to appeal to him again.

"All right, so Cicero attacked that harlot, Astrid! But what's a fool to do, when his mother is slandered and mocked? Surely the Listener understands!"

More laughter bubbles, bubbles, bursts, knife bloodied and waving.

A troll. More laughing. It grabs Gavin by the arm and flings him against a wall. He laughs harder, ribs bruised and aching and cracked. He stabs it. Stabs and stabs and is flinged and struck and stuck and flames. He’s giggling when he leaves, closer now, closer and closer and the voice is appealing again and again and then silence. He takes gold out of a chest, trying trying trying to get his mind to be silent, too, picking and picking and the chest opens.

Gavin’s fingers touch the door ever so slightly and it swings open. The jester on the floor, clutching his side and curled up into a ball, looks up at him. Gavin laughs again, strolling closer and closer, limbs moving like a man possessed.

“You won’t get away from me so easily, Keeper.”

“Oh, you caught me! I surrender! Ha ha ha ha.”

Gavin stares down at Cicero a long moment, gripping his knife tighter, before he reaches into a hidden pocket inside his vest and withdraws a journal that he flings down at the smaller man.

“There is only one cure for your madness, Cicero. Me.”

Cicero grabs the journal and clutches it to his chest as he glares up at the Listener.

"Oh, I like that! Very good, _very good_! Creative! But killing me would be a mistake! _Oh yes._ You would displease our mother, hmm? For she's _your_ mother too, isn't she... Listener? _Walk away!_ Let poor Cicero live! Tell the pretender Astrid you did the job! Stabbed, strangled, drowned poor Cicero! One little itty bitty lie!"

Gavin drops to his knees next to the bleeding man, dagger set carefully aside on the floor like his sanity. Cicero relaxes, mistaking the gesture as one of agreement, before hands are gripped tight around his throat. Gavin squeezes his grip to a vice as he leans in to his ear, a sharp and sudden pain in his side as Cicero tries to fight out of his grip.

“If you ever leave me again, dear Keeper, I will personally destroy you down to your very soul. Even Sithis would need to look away from the agony of the kill. You will suffer and beg and cry, and I will cut out your tongue and break your voice so you cannot even scream the edge off. Do you understand me?”

“Y… Ye…”

Gavin releases Cicero, who drops back, staring up at him with the widest of eyes. Gavin plucks the dagger from his side and examines it.

“I think I’ll take this, as ‘proof’ or whatever. You take mine. Don’t lose it.”

Cicero rubs his throat, still staring. “Listener?”

“I can’t leave you defenseless. The only one allowed to kill you is me.”

“Listener…”

“You stabbed me pretty good. Arnbjorn won’t feel _entirely_ useless. Now where can you stay in the meantime… hmm…”

“Listener.”

“Perhaps I’ll get you a room in Dawnstar proper, but you’re not exactly inconspicuous… Astrid might figure it out, and then I’ll have to kill her.”

“Listener!”

Gavin looks at Cicero.

“What?”

“You… Cicero can take care of himself. What are you… Why?”

Gavin licks his lips before smirking manically. “Because you belong to _me._ You’re _mine_ to destroy as I wish. I’m Listener – you’re Keeper. Two servants of Mother.”

Cicero reaches up and grabs Gavin’s sleeve. “The pretender must be stopped. Insults Mother. Denies the Listener his place.”

“She will, have no fear, dear Keeper.” Gavin assures, pulling a potion out of a pocket. “Now drink this and find somewhere to lay low.”

Cicero takes the potion and nods in earnest.

“Of _course_, Listener! Anything you say!”

Gavin pets his cheek a moment before he makes his way out, blood dripping a small trail behind him as he goes.

**Author's Note:**

> This will hopefully get two short follow-ups.


End file.
